3 things that may decrease your staff's work ethic

Managing a group of the waitstaff of a restaurant is always a bit more complicated than working alone or on a computer - although it does make life more interesting and challenging.

It makes you grow, learn more, adapt yourself to the circumstances and the most interesting part, at least for me, is that you have to be creative and practical for the day-by-day but at the same time stay focused on the bigger picture and the goals of the business. The biggest challenges in managing waitstaff are based on human behaviours, and that is why to be successful, it's mandatory to be flexible, creative and not a dictator.

1. Knowing what you want to do
The first big challenge and the one that comes carried by our generation is the "what am I doing with my life" or "what do I want to do". This is not more than existentialism problems that all of us have been passing through some times.

2. Lack of motivation
The second one is the lack of motivation for giving an excellent experience to the customers. Most of the waitstaff I knew don't feel or see the beauty of serving people and delivering/generating nice moments for them.

3. Lack of self-discipline
The third one is a lack of self-discipline - this is an interesting topic is the one that most people, including me some times, don't want to face or "leave for later". Discipline is one of the keys to approaching the idea of giving a good service and most of the time; discipline is what is missing. This is no challenge just for gastronomy or punctually waitstaff but for a significant percentage of our society. In gastronomy this a delicate point to face everyday's life and of course review and reinforce as much as possible.

Challenges are good motivation's detonator, and that is why I like them, and I see them as exiting problems to face and came up with the right solution. That is something that keeps me motivated and pushes me to always go a little bit further and improve my way of managing.